Roghult, Madeleine

Abstract [en]

Sustainable development is an approach to development that seeks to be multidimensional, meaning that it integrates social, economic and environmental aspects in order to be inclusive for people of diverging nations and realities. Sustainable development adheres to the Human Rights regime and claims that every person regardless of social differences such as ethnicity, class and sex, has the right to undisputable freedom and justice. This study situates a group of people who are globally denied these basic rights and face political, social and legal discrimination. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people face a sexual violence that development discourse has not observed, making sexual identity a political issue. By using a queer feminist approach that understands gender and sexuality as co-dependent, this study analyses how discourse on sustainable development, in the documents of the Agenda 21 and Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, conceptualises gender and what the implications are for sexual identity. A conceptual framework with concepts drawn from queer feminism is utilised to conduct critical discourse analysis and has shown the discourse to be shaped by heteronormative assumptions. Women and men are viewed as essentially different, as women embody particular needs and roles distinct from men. A discourse of motherhood ties the woman in a sexual relationship to men and naturalises the heterosexual purpose of reproduction as a hegemonic way of expressing sexuality. This creates a blind spot towards non-heterosexual sexuality and non-reproductive sexuality and closes the door to policies and programmes on sexual issues other than reproductive. Not only does this exclude LGBT people from discourse, but also the limited heterosexual norm sets a standard that not even heterosexual people might comply to.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages

2009. , p. 41

Keyword [en]

sustainable development, gender, sexuality, queer, feminism

Keyword [sv]

hållbar utveckling, genus, sexualitet, queer, feminism

National Category

Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies) Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified